Electronically-communicated messages (“electronic mail messages”) such as email, paging messages, and voicemail have become increasingly popular and pervasive in recent years. For the creator of an electronic mail message, the ability to send the message to one or more recipients provides for quick and efficient communication. Such communication via electronic mail messages has become common in both business and personal settings. While the initial distribution of electronic mail messages by a sender is quick and convenient, ensuring that an electronic mail message is responded to by a recipient within a certain time frame is not convenient.
A few transmission systems allow the sender to request notification when an electronic mail message is received by a recipient and when it has been accessed (e.g., opened by an application program with which the recipient can review the message) by the recipient. In some such systems, the recipient's system will provide to the sender's system a delivery receipt or a review receipt to provide notification when delivery or review of an electronic mail message has occurred. Thus, if a review receipt has not yet been received, then the recipient may not have reviewed the electronic mail message. However, the sender has no automatic means of prompting the recipient to reply to an electronic mail message for which the sender requires a response, and the sender has no means for tracking that such a response has been received. Therefore, a need exists for an automatic means of prompting a recipient to reply to an electronic mail message that requires a response, and tracking that such a response has been received.